Unrecorded British Music for String Orchestra

[MikePurton]

I'm very pleased to announce a new recording from MPR of music for string orchestra entitled 'Palace Premieres', with the Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra. The playlist consists of hitherto unrecorded music performed at Royal Investitures and includes works such as Suite: 'In Rural England' by Thomas Dunhill, 'Shepherd's Delight' by Alec Rowley, 'Pastoral Scene' by Frederic Curzon, 'Fragment for Strings' by Bertram Walton O'Donnell, 'Nocturne' by WH Speer, Gavotte 'In Georgian Days' by Roger Quilter, 'Rivers of Devon Suite' by Ernest Markham Lee and a number of beautiful light music arrangements for strings of folk songs. We have also included as a 'bonus' a suite of Seven Pieces by Giles Farnaby, arranged by Bantock. We recorded the latter only to discover that in fact it has already been recorded but only once to our knowledge and we decided that as it is such good material we just had to include it.

The Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra is very sensitively directed by Major David Hammond, a very fine musician who also happens to be (to my deep joy!) a horn player (I was Principal Horn in the Hallé 1973-86). The orchestra consists of the best string players in the Army and before any of you switch off 'because they couldn't possibly be any good', you will be proved utterly wrong. They are largely conservatoire trained musicians and are led by a violinist who played with the RPO for years before realising that she and her children would benefit from a much better lifestyle. The quality of playing is excellent and the performances musicianly and committed. The CD was recorded in the sumptuous acoustic of the Guards Chapel in London and the recording engineer is the legendary Tony Faulkner. I was producer and editor and recommend this recording to anyone who loves British music of a certain period (see above). Lee's 'Rivers of Devon' Suite is very Elgarian, Speer's little 'Nocturne' brings to mind 'Siegfried Idyll' and you can see from many of the titles that Rural England (whatever that was!) is frequently invoked. I do hope folk will buy this and other CDs, this helps small labels such as mine be able to afford new projects. Do remember that streaming brings to the record label the princely sum of 0.01p per track. My website can be found at www.mikepurtonrecording.com - thanks for reading this! The recording has been made in collaboration with the Corps of Army Music Trust.

[JeremyMHolmes]

Thanks for the post Mike, this sounds very tasty and I shall certainly be ordering a copy. I will also attest to your comment about the quality of the musicians in this orchestra - I know one of the cellists who is also RCM/Conservatory trained and he joined for similar reasons to the leader.

[MikePurton]

Many thanks, I'm sure you won't be disappointed! It will be up on my website imminently to order. best, Mike

[JeremyMHolmes]

Duly ordered! 

[giles.enders]

The Speer is of particular interest to me as a while ago I researched him and through that am acquainted with one of his descendants.  I will bring it to her attention.

[rosflute]

congratulations!

[kLAMI]

Thanks to this thread, I immediately ordered the new Arnold Cooke.
Thank you for this release.

[Alan Howe]

Glad you found that release.